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It was the smoothest of handovers. At 11.59pm on Monday 30 June, 1997, a little after guests at Hong Kong’s Regent Hotel had enjoyed curry in the Raj room and rum punches in the Caribbean room, a military band struck up God Save the Queen. The Union flag – and the British Empire with which it had for so long been synonymous, all across the globe – fell in unison.

The last note had hardly faded when the band of the People’s Liberation Army struck up a rather different anthem. Just as they did so, at the stroke of midnight, the red and yellow-starred flag of Communist China began to be raised. After 156 years, Britain was surrendering its last major colony - but, for a time, it seemed only the...